pixels and pictures

On Monday, August 21, 2017, millions of people were staring at the same thing through doofy glasses, as they tried to catch a glimpse of the solar eclipse.

An observer in Colorado stands framed by a partial solar eclipse in a picture taken last week and submitted to National Geographic's My Shot.

Solar eclipses happen when the moon lines up between Earth and the sun. But in the most recent case, known as an annular eclipse, the dark moon's apparent diameter was smaller than the visible disk of the sun, so that it left a ring—or annulus—of fiery light around the edges.

The event was the first annular eclipse seen from the mainland United States since 1994.

Moonset over Mount Sharp

This image combines a single Mastcam frame taken of Phobos behind Mt. Sharp on sol 613 (April 28, 2014) with three images from a 360-degree mosaic acquired during the afternoon of sol 610 (April 24, 2014) to extend the foreground view and balance the image composition.
The moonset view came from one sol; Justin extended the mosaic with some images taken a previous sol. "The sol 610 frames were adjusted to match the color of the Sol 613 image. As these additional frames were in the opposite direction of the Sun, very few shadows are present, ideal for matching the post-sunset lighting conditions of the sol 613 image," he writes.

A bit of Phobos trivia: Curiosity's view here is to the east, but this is indeed a moonset, not a moonrise. Phobos orbits so close to Mars that it moves around Mars faster than Mars rotates, and consequently it appears to rise in the west and set in the east!